Sky TV Bill Increases

ZeroG82

We are coming up to the end of our contract with Sky and I'm looking for some advice on how to go forward from here. We are currently paying £78/month for SkyTV and Broadband/home phone. Our package includes Sky Signature (£11), Ultimate TV Addon (£5), Sky Cinema (£9), SkyHD (£7), Multiscreen (£11), UltraHD (free). The Internet & phone component is £35. We use all this and are happy paying this amount but looking at our future bills they are going up to £102.93 in April, £122.00 in May and £126.00 in June which is quite a hike.

What's the best way to go about trying to get a reduction on this? is the only way to phone up and say you want to cancel? It's a bit annoying as I've just started to work from home and fast fibre is crucial.

Edit: Forgot to add we also get Netflix through them which doesn't show on the bill here but works out slightly cheaper than getting direct from Netflix somehow.

Neil_Jones

Work out what you're watching channel wise.  If the bulk of your viewing is on the channels that are on Freeview, why are you even paying for Sky?

Broadband you can bounce off new customer deals if you want to stay with Sky.

ZeroG82

We use quite a variety of the channels, everything from films to entertainment, news, TV shows etc. We originally went with sky because we wanted Fibre broadband and FTTP wasn't yet available in our area so didn't want to go with Vodafone and taking the SkyTV was a good deal because we were paying for Netflix, NowTV, Amazon Prime TV etc. so it turned out to be a savings by cutting down on the amount of services we were subscribed to.

Being able to use SkyGo when we are out and about is an added benefit. We really do like Sky but by June we will be paying an extra £48/month for what we are getting now.

Neil_Jones

So look at new customer deals for Sky and broadband and use that as a starting point.

If you want to stay but not at full price phone them up and say my deal is nearly up, I see you're doing <whatever> for new customers, what can you do for me.

brewerdave

Whatever you do, IF you decide to follow the cancellation route , ONLY cancel the TV portion - a restoration of TV service can be achieved in a few hours (at most) as long as you haven't sent the equipment back.
A cancellation of the broadband can be much more problematic as other suppliers cannot place an order on the phoneline until the cancellation completes. Look for better deals on the broadband to pressure Sky, but if no success, use the switching service so that the new supplier takes over from Sky "seamlessly"

HaroldWren5

ZeroG82 said:

We use quite a variety of the channels, everything from films to entertainment, news, TV shows etc. We originally went with sky because we wanted Fibre broadband and FTTP wasn't yet available in our area so didn't want to go with Vodafone and taking the SkyTV was a good deal because we were paying for Netflix, NowTV, Amazon Prime TV etc. so it turned out to be a savings by cutting down on the amount of services we were subscribed to.

Being able to use SkyGo when we are out and about is an added benefit. We really do like Sky but by June we will be paying an extra £48/month for what we are getting now.

Understood. So it sounds like you like having the Sky TV channels. I would go about it this way:

1. Firstly, are you now able to get FTTP via Openreach/Cityfibre broadband providers? If so, then you're probably best off switching broadband. 
2. Would you be happy receiving your Sky TV channels via the Internet (probably best if you CAN get FTTP)? You can get everything in "up to HD quality" via NowTV (a subsidiary of Sky) via their Smart app. And there seem to be various offers and ways to get the NowTV packages over time. The main "Freeview" channels would have to be received via an aerial though (or by Freesat). 
3. The best way (usually) to get Sky to reduce the price of TV is to threaten to leave, or indeed actually leave. And they may come back after you do with better offers. If you are happy to pay for NowTV in the mean time, that might be your best bet. Note that NowTV is on rolling 30 day contracts (though you can get discounts for longer periods depending on deals). 

As for broadband, sometimes it works out cheaper to keep it with Sky. Sometimes it might work out cheaper (and more flexible) to have it with a different provider. As for FTTP, I think Sky currently offer up to 500Mbps packages.

I would suggest probably switching to NowTV, cancel Sky. You'd get the same channels and Sky may eventually come back with a better offer. Either way, you don't lose any channels. And broadband just become a "new customer" with a different provider. Of course, if you can get FTTP then that is certainly easier. If not, and it's still FTTC broadband for now, then you'd want to go with the shortest contract provider and hold out until FTTP arrives. You want maximum negotiating power to sign up at that point when FTTP arrives.